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Category Archives: Op-eds

Opinion: Assisted suicide – why the Falconer Bill must be rejected

By Helen Tedcastle | Thu 17th July 2014 - 1:28 pm

The issue of assisted suicide and euthanasia has been presented in the media in a highly emotionally charged way in recent years, with several ‘hard cases’ of non-terminally ill people wanting to die. This has resulted in confusion over what exactly is at stake in the forthcoming Falconer Bill and of course, hard cases make bad law.

In the sad case of Tony Nicklinson, lawyers argued that he had Article 8 rights under the European Convention on Human Rights (respect for private life and family). In their view, …

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Tagged assisted suicide and lord falconer | 16 Comments

Opinion: Help stop lives being ruined by abusive practice of revenge pornography

By Hannah Thompson | Thu 17th July 2014 - 10:25 am

Next Monday, two amendments to criminalise revenge porn will go to the committee stage in the House of Lords.

For those who don’t know, revenge porn is non-consensual pornography. It’s where a person uploads an explicit image of somebody without their permission. Often the victim’s name and contact details are attached. Not only is it humiliating but it has the potential to reach out of the screen and destroy people’s lives.

The first amendment was submitted by a group of Liberal Democrats in the Lords. It states that ‘a person …

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Tagged revenge pornography | 12 Comments

Michael Gove: The Case for the Defence. And also the Case for the Prosecution.

By Stephen Tall | Wed 16th July 2014 - 3:24 pm

Unlike most Lib Dems, I am not a Gove-hater. But nor do I share the adulation those one on the Right bestow upon him. The man we must now call the former Education secretary was more complex than his critics allowed and more flawed than his fans admitted.

No-one should doubt Michael Gove’s passion for schools reform, nor his sincerity. For him it is much more than political: it is also personal. Two men have shaped much of the education agenda in the last 15 years: Gove and Labour’s Andrew Adonis, …

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Tagged andrew old, ben goldacre, dominic cummings, featured and michael gove | 21 Comments

The Independent View: The pupil premium may be starting to deliver – but beware false dawns of the past

By Helen Barnard | Wed 16th July 2014 - 2:24 pm

Today Ofsted deliver their verdict on the Liberal Democrats’ pupil premium policy, four years into its existence – a pledge which was on the front page of the party’s manifesto. In straitened times, this was a welcome commitment to focus limited resources on poorer children, and an explicit attempt to break the cycle of poverty.

There are positive signs that the additional resources being put in through pupil premium are being used better to improve the education of children from low income backgrounds, but not yet evidence that they are …

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Also posted in The Independent View | Tagged david laws, education and pupil premium | 11 Comments

Lord Paul Tyler writes…Progress in Magna Carta’s Birthday year

By Paul Tyler | Wed 16th July 2014 - 11:56 am

In a week when the big news is about changed faces in government, there is also much manoeuvring in the political undergrowth about the rules which govern government: our constitution.

The House of Commons Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform (P&CR) has launched a debate on a written constitution for the United Kingdom. This has been a Liberal and Liberal Democrat objective for all my time in politics, but the question has always been how such a document would be drawn up, agreed and entrenched beyond the usual …

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Tagged constitutional reform, Scotland and Wales | 6 Comments

Opinion: Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill – A measure of humanity

By Toby Keynes | Wed 16th July 2014 - 10:25 am

When Lord Falconer put forward his Assisted Dying Bill, I had no idea it would generate so much interest. Similar bills have gone before the Lords before, and similar bills have failed, by a wide margin.

However, this bill is gathering a remarkable head of steam ahead of its second reading in the Lords this Friday, 18^th July .

The Church of England’s General Synod’s decision to reject the bill and call for a Royal Commission is reasonably predictable, but it’s becoming clear that opposition to the bill is far from …

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Tagged assisted dying bill | 18 Comments

Opinion: Violence And Peace In The Middle East – There Is Something We Can Do

By Jonathan Brown | Wed 16th July 2014 - 8:55 am

The recent murders of the Israeli and Palestinian children were in themselves terrible crimes but they also served to ignite the latest round of brutal violence in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Some media commentators are tempted to suggest that this is inevitable and un-resolvable but I don’t believe that to be the case.

I was surprised recently to discover – and then to find that I greatly admired – the Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine’s 9 point plan for peace and the three principles that inform …

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Tagged israel, liberal democrat friends of palestine, middle east, palestine and peace | 13 Comments

Opinion: Assisted dying

By James Harper | Tue 15th July 2014 - 3:20 pm

The Assisted Dying Bill returns to the House of Lords this week following high-profile interventions by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby , and his predecessor-but-one, George Carey.

While the bill may receive a second reading in the Lords, it stands little chance of progressing in the Commons. This is because key MPs, including David Cameron and Nick Clegg, are firmly against it. I respect the sincerity of Cameron and Clegg’s concerns, but I also believe their stated views show that they have not approached the issue in the right way. It is vital that any debate in the commons is open and honest, and not skewed by prejudice or emotion. MPs could do worse than begin the debate by considering the views of the two archbishops, which actually advanced the quality of the public discourse quite significantly.

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Tagged assisted dying | 17 Comments

Opinion: The pressures of being a parliamentary candidate

By Phil Ling | Tue 15th July 2014 - 1:30 pm

It is with a sad, and heavy, heart that yesterday I heard of Sarah Yong’s decision to stand down as PPC for Somerton and Frome for personal reasons. What is even sadder is that people are demanding to know the personal reasons, either because the privacy of an individual is less important than what this means to the party or to show it’s not because of the party prospects. If an employee (even CEO) of an organisation stepped down for personal reasons it is normally respected and the organisation moves on.

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13 Comments

Women bishops – at last

By Mary Reid | Tue 15th July 2014 - 11:49 am

All liberals, of whatever political persuasion, will welcome the news that the barriers to appointing women bishops in the Church of England have now been removed. There has been a lot of misinformation flying around, with the glib portrayal of the bishops as a crowd of geriatric misogynists, so a few facts might help to improve the debate.

The General Synod, which is the governing body of the Church of England, first approved the appointment of female bishops in principle in 2008. Since then it has been trying to agree on the provisions to be made for those local churches which will not accept them, just as it did when women were first ordained as priests.

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Tagged church of england and women bishops | 19 Comments

Opinion: The Rawnsley Challenge

By David Allen | Tue 15th July 2014 - 9:57 am

Andrew Rawnsley, in the Observer, describes the rumoured Westminster paedophile scandal and asks the question: “Whom do you trust? Comes an answer that is as popular as it is succinct: trust no one.”

Rawnsley wearily summarises why we have lost trust in bankers, doctors, intelligence services, police, bishops, supermarkets, media and celebrities – and above all, politicians of all sides, from Blair onwards. Then he gets more original. He identifies judge-led enquiry as a means of establishing who we can trust – and then shows how that option was kyboshed. When Hutton exonerated Blair (and when Blair recommended the Hutton process to his friend Rebekah Brooks), judge-led enquiry was discredited. Government, as often, has been slow to recognise the problem – as evidenced by the recent proposal that the sister of a previous Attorney-General should lead a historic child abuse enquiry.

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Tagged citizens juries and truth and reconciliation | 21 Comments

Norman Baker MP writes…Why the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill is compatible with human rights

By Norman Baker MP | Mon 14th July 2014 - 5:15 pm

As a party we care deeply about human rights. Left to their own devices, the Conservatives would have pulled us out of the European Convention. Thanks to the Liberal Democrats, we have stopped that from happening.

So I am concerned by some suggestions that the emergency legislation we published on Thursday isn’t compliant with the ECHR. This is simply not true.

As many of you will know, in April this year the European Court of Justice overturned the EU Data Retention Directive. They did so on the basis that this …

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Tagged DRIP and norman baker | 38 Comments

Opinion: Just remember we’re all human

By Marisha Ray | Mon 14th July 2014 - 2:30 pm

When young adults, who may even at the time have been members of prestigious universities and their more infamous clubs, became intoxicated and indulged in aggressive or loud and disturbing speech, violent actions or were simply careless and destructive, did we automatically assume that when they matured they would behave that way for the rest of their lives? We did not. Indeed some may still be thought fit to take part in the running of our country.

When young adults or older youths indulge in isolated incidents of unwise pyromania, do we say that they will be pyromaniacs for life? We do not, and in general they are not.

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Tagged civil liberties, Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill and surveillance | 11 Comments

Opinion: DRIP under the microscope – should Liberal Democrats support this Bill?

By Mark Pack | Mon 14th July 2014 - 12:59 pm

Unusually for me, I’m starting writing this piece without knowing what conclusion I’ll come to by the end of it. Normally it’s straight forward enough to marshal evidence, decide on view and then write it up (unless the curse of writers’ block strikes of course).

But the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill (DRIP) takes the usual perils of journalism turning most stories into a simple good versus bad dynamic, throws in the paucity of expert mainstream coverage of many technical issues and adds a dash of juggling different uncertainties.

Certainly if …

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Tagged civil liberties, Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill and featured | 29 Comments

Lord Brian Paddick writes: The difficult balancing act between privacy and security

By Brian Paddick | Mon 14th July 2014 - 10:45 am

As a Liberal former police officer I am acutely aware of the difficult balancing act the government has to perform between keeping us safe and keeping our personal data safe. At the same time I see both the anxiety that those concerned with civil liberties have over the new legislation and the Government’s need to act to prevent a valuable crime detection tool slipping from our grasp.

So why the need and why the rush?

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Tagged civil liberties, communications data and Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill | 37 Comments

Vince Cable writes…Strengthening confidence in the UK’s takeover laws

By Vince Cable | Sun 13th July 2014 - 12:43 pm

The attempted but abortive Pfizer takeover bid for AstraZeneca has triggered a timely political debate in the UK about whether the safeguards in mergers and takeover legislation are adequate – especially when significant research and development assets are at stake. It is now clear to me that some changes should be made.

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Tagged acquisition, business and pfizer | 3 Comments

Cool politicians poll showcases the paucity of political debate

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 13th July 2014 - 10:15 am

I thought we’d scraped the bottom of the barrel when these photos of poor Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich led to him being mocked in virtually every publication in the UK. But it gets worse. The other day I sighed when I saw the headline “Ed Miliband is less cool than Sir Menzies Campbell”. Apparently YouGov has been spending time and money asking people how cool a group of current and former party leaders are.

Unsurprisingly, nobody makes it out of the negatives:

It’s certainly true than …

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Tagged Polls and yougov | 7 Comments

A longer read for the weekend… Edward Lucas on the threat posed to peace by Russia and what the West should do about it

By Stephen Tall | Sun 13th July 2014 - 8:45 am

Edward Lucas worked for Paddy Ashdown, has helped at by-elections, and was active in the National League of Young Liberals (NLYL) and the Union of Liberal Students (ULS). He’s better known, though, for being a senior editor at The Economist and an expert on energy, cyber-security, espionage, Russian foreign and security policy and the politics and economics of Eastern Europe. In 2008 he wrote The New Cold War, a prescient account of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In 2011 he wrote Deception, an investigative account of east-west espionage. And earlier …

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Also posted in Europe / International and News | Tagged edward lucas, featured, russia and ukraine | 64 Comments

Lessons must be learned from the Jo Swinson speculation

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 12th July 2014 - 2:20 pm

On Thursday, George Eaton of the New Statesman blogged that Jo Swinson was about to replace Ed Davey in the forthcoming Cabinet reshuffle.

Today, the Guardian’s Nick Watt says that this is not the case and Jo is expected to become Secretary of State for Scotland in September after the independence referendum.

Nick Clegg, acutely conscious that the five Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers are all men, is expected to promote the business minister Jo Swinson to the cabinet. But she is expected to succeed Alistair Carmichael as Scotland secretary after September’s independence referendum in September if, as expected, the pro-Union side prevails. Carmichael would be praised for his role in the victory as Swinson took charge on introducing greater devolution to the Scottish parliament.

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Tagged Alistair Carmichael, cabinet reshuffle, ed davey, george eaton, guardian, Jo Swinson, new statesman and nicholas watt | 36 Comments

LibLink: Norman Baker: Security and freedom in the internet age

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 12th July 2014 - 9:58 am

Norman Baker wrote an article for the party website which I thought you might find useful because it deals with some of the points raised in the questions to my mammoth post yesterday. I must warn you, though, that there are some examples of apostrophe abuse in it, so steel yourselves.

Many, if not most, people are concerned about the rush to get this legislation through in just two days. Norman gives his explanation of why he thinks it’s necessary:

No government introduces fast track legislation lightly, but the challenge

…

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Also posted in LibLink | Tagged civil liberties, communications data, norman baker and snoopers charter | 9 Comments

Baroness Sarah Ludford writes…How not to use Brussels for policy laundering

By Sarah Ludford | Fri 11th July 2014 - 7:20 pm

The new Data Retention and Investigatory Powers (DRIP) Bill responds to the European Court of Justice annulment of the 2006 EU Data Retention Directive.

The government asserts that the DRIP Bill only confirms existing law as it is broadly the same content as the 2009 regulations implementing the EU Directive. But as that Directive has been swept away, DRIP provides a new legal basis, and this will in fact be the first time that legislation to regulate retention of phone, email and internet records has been generated …

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Tagged civil liberties, communications data, Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill, featured and snoopers charter | 7 Comments

Opinion: State security measures can protect liberty not just threaten it

By Iain Sharpe | Fri 11th July 2014 - 3:08 pm

It is an unwritten law of Lib Dem debates on security issues that before long someone will quote Benjamin Franklin that ‘Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.’

I have always been intrigued by the origins of this comment, primarily because taken on its own and literally, it is hyperbolic nonsense. Almost any form of government involves some tension between liberty and security. The state provides defence and police forces, but to do so levies taxes and circumscribes individuals’ freedom to use force to defend themselves.

There seems to be very little on the web about what Franklin actually meant. But an academic paper by Benjamin Wittes of Brookings Institute unsurprisingly reveals that Franklin’s aphorism was intended in a very different sense from that in which it is now so often quoted.

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Tagged civil liberties and national security | 7 Comments

Cable backs right to strike and opposes strikes

By Joe Otten | Fri 11th July 2014 - 11:57 am

Quoted in the Independent

We believe that getting round the negotiating table is better than striking.

We do not believe unions should be striking and causing mass disruption when everyone has been affected by similar pay conditions.

This reflects the fact that a better deal for one group of public sector workers would be paid for out of taxes on other workers, that the strikes if successful would not win a better deal for working people in general, rather for some at the expense of others. There is …

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Tagged employment rights, strikes and vince cable | 78 Comments

Opinion: We should be ashamed of these emergency surveillance powers

By James Baker | Fri 11th July 2014 - 8:43 am

In April the European Court of Justice ruled that the UK’s regime of mass data retention was incompatible with the treaty on fundamental rights, particularly with article 8 that stipulates the right to private and family life, right to protection of personal data and the right to freedom of expression. This was a major victory for many Liberals, civil liberties advocates and privacy campaigners who have fought against the widespread blanket retention of innocent and law-abiding citizen’s data.

The ruling set out 10 principles that new legislation should adhere …

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Tagged civil liberties, communications data and snoopers charter | 56 Comments

The security bill: why I think dirty hands are better than empty hands

By Stephen Tall | Thu 10th July 2014 - 9:16 pm

Today saw the surprise springing of emergency new surveillance legislation, announced by David Cameron and Nick Clegg and agreed with Ed Miliband. The Lib Dems have been quick to assert this isn’t the Snoopers’ Charter Revisited – torpedoed by Clegg after a Lib Dem grassroots’ revolt in April 2012 – but any attempt by the government to legislate in these areas gets liberal hackles up.

I’ve not had chance to read and absorb the details yet, though I’m reassured by the clear …

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Also posted in News | 20 Comments

Opinion: Liberal Democrats should take a stand on state surveillance powers

By Alex Smethurst | Thu 10th July 2014 - 2:00 pm

The Coalition Government has announced it is rushing through emergency legislation underpinning the state’s right to keep personal data held by internet and phone companies. This is in reaction to the ruling by the European Court of Justice that at an EU directive on privacy retention had over-reached its powers and amounted to an invasion of privacy.

If the European Court of Justice says existing state surveillance powers are unlawful then we should not re-introduce them with no questions asked. Let’s have the debate as to whether the state should have these powers …

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Tagged civil liberties, communications data and snoopers charter | 30 Comments

Julian Huppert: This is not Snoopers’ Charter. It’s what we had already plus additional safeguards

By The Voice | Thu 10th July 2014 - 10:56 am

We’ve been asked to reproduce Julian Huppert’s email with the details of the new legislation in a separate post so that people don’t have to go through the mammoth post to find it, so here it is. Now, because people are clearly wanting the debate to stay in one place, we’ve closed off comments. If you have a point to make, please do it on this post here. We’re not doing it to be evil and awkward but because people have criticised us for having too many threads going …

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Tagged featured | Comments Off

Sal Brinton to stand for party President

By Sal Brinton | Wed 9th July 2014 - 3:45 pm

The Liberal Democrats have had a really tough four years since the formation of the coalition. Even though we suspected it would be tough, being in Government has taken its toll. Too many councillors who have worked hard, campaigned hard, and faithfully served their communities well, have lost their seats. They embody Liberal Democrat principles in action all over the country, so we must rebuild our local government base as a priority.

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Tagged presidential election 2014 and sal brinton | 13 Comments

Baroness Joan Walmsley writes…The NSPCC does not go far enough

By Joan Walmsley | Wed 9th July 2014 - 1:15 pm

This morning the BBC had an exclusive story from the NSPCC. They have at long last shifted their position on making it a crime to cover up child abuse and have come out with a very half-hearted and confusing policy. I call it “safeguarding light.” Instead of making it the duty of everybody with the care of children in a regulated institution (like a school) to report to the Local Authority any child abuse or serious suspicion of child abuse, as I am advocating, they are saying that …

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Tagged child abuse, featured and nspcc | 4 Comments

Benefits sanctions: what should happen when guidelines and reality are at odds with each other?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 9th July 2014 - 10:25 am

Back in April, I wrote about how the overuse of benefits sanctions appeared to be at odds with the Department of Work and Pensions guidance which was actually quite reasonable and gave decision makers some flexibility to take things like poor mental health into consideration.

Both the use and the penalty for even a minor infringement of the rules have been dramatically increased in the last couple of years. It’s worth noting that the minimum period of benefit loss is now 4 weeks. Given that the maximum help you can get from a food bank is 3 days’ food, 3 times a year, you can just imagine how much incredible hardship this can cause. You would think that a decision maker would take very seriously the consequences of imposing a sanction and only do it when the circumstances were clear cut.

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Tagged benefit sanctions, department of work and pensions, polly toynbee and the guardian | 27 Comments